Hundreds of liberal groups band together against Trump’s threats of RICO cases and investigations

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN

(CNN) — Hundreds of nonprofit groups, most of them left-leaning, are joining together to urge President Donald Trump to end what they call the “unjustified” targeting of liberal organizations following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In an open letter issued Thursday and shared first with CNN, more than 500 groups condemned what they described as the use of government power to threaten their First Amendment rights. Organizations signing the letter ranged from the American Civil Liberties Union and Indivisible to Greenpeace USA and the Service Employees International Union.

Trump and others in his administration have invoked Kirk’s killing at a Utah university campus last week to say they will crack down on groups that they view as part of a coordinated left-wing effort to incite violence.

“Political violence has targeted those of every political persuasion and of no political persuasion,” the groups said. “It is un-American and wrong to use this act of violence as a pretext for weaponizing the government to threaten nonprofit and charitable organizations, other perceived adversaries, or any class of people.”

“They did not commit this murder,” the letter added, “and the vast powers of the government should not be abused to threaten their constitutionally-protected free speech and other rights.”

The actions publicly floated by the president and some conservatives include revoking the tax-exempt status of left-leaning non-profits and launching racketeering investigations of organizations that have helped coordinate or fund protests against Trump’s policies.

“It is disingenuous and false for Democrats to say Administration actions are about free speech – they’re not,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “This effort will target those committing criminal acts and hold them accountable.”

So far, Trump has announced that he is designating the far-left movement Antifa as a terrorist organization, although it was not immediately clear how administration intends to carry out the designation.

“The assassination of Kirk was a tragedy for his family and a danger for the nation,” said Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of Public Citizen, which helped organize Thursday’s public statement from the liberal groups. “It is unconscionable to exploit this dangerous political moment to further divisions and violate rights, when what we desperately need right now is to lower the temperature of our discourse and bring the country together.”

The letter from the nonprofits follows a similar action Wednesday from more than 100 philanthropies who banded together to defend free speech. In that letter, the foundations defended their work and denounced what they said were efforts to “exploit political violence to mischaracterize our good work of restrict our fundamental freedoms.”

Signatories included the Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic group founded by billionaire financier and Democratic donor George Soros, who has been a repeated target of scorn from Trump and the right.

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